ITV1 Cheap Flights

Former_MSE_Archna

Martin will be filming an ITV1 Tonight special on budget airline flights - the prime aim is to show that it really can be done super cheaply.

They're looking for people to take part and share they're experiences on screen. Do you fit into one of the below categories?

• Have you genuinely flown for under £10 each way all-in? Love travelling around Europe for the cost of a cinema ticket? If you’ve got a good story to tell about your travel bargains

• Ever tried to book a £1 flight which ended up costing you a fortune. Have you been stung by a budget airline? Paid too much? Unfairly treated? Maybe you have other stories to tell about your experience of flying with the low cost airlines?

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• Would you like a cheap flight finding and booking lesson? Are you a family that struggle to find cheap flights and always seem to pay over the odds. Would you like to know the inside track on how to get the cheapest flights and how to save money on your holiday? You would have to live in London or in the South East and would have to be relatively flexible regarding travel dates.

[/FONT]If you have an interesting story to tell please contact Emily Burndred on 0161 952 1016 or [EMAIL="emily.burndred@itv.com"]emily.burndred@itv.com[/EMAIL].

balajo

It might be 1pound but there is always tax, and sometimes I find if the base price is higher, then the total price is less than a 1 pound base fare. Strange but true.
Other issues, easyjet forces you to pay luggage charges on both segments for a return flight even if you just need it for one segment. This isn't clear during the purchasing process. Later I learned you have to book 2 separate tickets, which means 2 transaction fees instead of 1 if you book a return.

fifeken

balajo wrote: »

It might be 1pound but there is always tax, and sometimes I find if the base price is higher, then the total price is less than a 1 pound base fare. Strange but true.
Other issues, easyjet forces you to pay luggage charges on both segments for a return flight even if you just need it for one segment. This isn't clear during the purchasing process. Later I learned you have to book 2 separate tickets, which means 2 transaction fees instead of 1 if you book a return.

If it's Ryanair there is no tax on the promo fares so a £1 fare can be had for £1.
Easyjet transaction fees are avoidable.

phatbear

balajo wrote: »

It might be 1pound but there is always tax, and sometimes I find if the base price is higher, then the total price is less than a 1 pound base fare. Strange but true.

Not true as I, and thousands of people like me, have used ryanair and not paid any taxes, sadly the days of 1p all in trips to spain are long gone but our team overnighters to the likes of germany are never more than £10 each way including all surcharges

coochycool

I've done plenty cheap trips with the budget airlines, though Ryanair are really the only boys these days who I consider offer trully giveaway prices. I once did a day trip with them Edinburgh to Dublin £1 each way just to see that its doable, and another bargain I recall was Pisa to Edinburgh with Jet2 which cost me 2 Euros plus tax. The one thing I always wondered though was how come Ryanair are the only company to offer flights with No Taxes payable? Presuming they don't have a special relationship with the tax man, am I to presume that they are really saying they will absorb the cost of the tax themselves, therefore making a net loss on such cheap fares? I always make a point of foregoing the rip off £4 sandwiches on board but they'd sure have to sell a few to cover their overheads.

darklighthim

I've been looking for a cheap flight to dublin and back from edinburgh only being away a day or two but so far never had the time to actually book a flight and go so it'll be interesting to watch.

phatbear

They avoid the taxes by classifying passengers as freight, which is not liable for airline tax, probably?

Incapuppy

I'm going to start an online petition to get Phatbear on ITV with Martin

Go Mr Bear! :T:T:T

melb

this is completely off topic but I'm so excited!! flight last monday cancelled by ryanairand first availoable flight was for next thurs which I booked as no realistic choice. then noticed today flights from tomorrow available so went in to manage my booking and could transfer but it would cost me over £500. rang call centre and explaind these flights weren't available when I selected next thursday and we're now flying back this friday!!! Andmy illness is going fast!! Actually OH was looking forward to another week here but i just want to get hme! Yippee!!! by the way I was only waiting about 20 minutes on the line so not too bad.

bbqforce10

Ok, some people may be able to travel really cheaply, but these are exceptions rather than the rule. The whole obsession with £1 flights is getting a bit dull. Air travel can be good value - it normally is in fact when you consider how quickly you can get to places and what your time is worth. But it is ridiculous to keep talking about ultra cheap flights, common sense should tell people that operating an aircraft costs a lot more than operating a bus for example!

Airlines need to (try to) make a profit - there is no point constantly operating flights that are making a loss.

Air travel involves a lot of costs:
On a domestic flight, the government get £11 tax per flight per passenger.
The airline has to pay the airports.
They have to lease the (expensive) plane
They have to maintain the plane with (expensive) engineers
They have to buy aviation fuel (planes use a lot of it!)
Pilots have to get paid (they earn a lot)
Cabin crew have to get paid, as do the office staff etc
The airlines have to spend a lot on advertising to sell the seats

Someone, somewhere has to pay for this to make the figures add up!
What we are seeing more and more, is lots of airlines introducing all sorts of extra charges for every little thing they can think of - so they can keep advertising £1 or £2.99 flights - but it is a completely false figure. You have to pay extra for a seat, or for your hold luggage bags, extra to check-in. A booking fee, credit card fee, taxes & charges (what are these charges??), massive excess baggage charges etc etc. Some passengers game the airlines and manage to travel really cheaply, but the majority get stung, and end up paying far more that the advertised super low fare, and have an altogether unpleasant experience.

Not all of the airlines are this bad, some of the smaller operators like Air Southwest and Aurigny for example, don't have all these extra charges, but generally this is the typical air traveller experience.

Super cheap air travel isn't the story - underhand pricing and charges - that's the story surely?

phatbear

Incapuppy wrote: »

I'm going to start an online petition to get Phatbear on ITV with Martin

Go Mr Bear! :T:T:T

Thanks pup but you know I cant reveal my true identity, I would either have to either be played by an actor, my suggestion would be keanu reeves, or have my face blacked out like the SAS when they are interviewed about the price of cod on the discovery channel

bbqforce10 wrote: »

The whole obsession with £1 flights is getting a bit dull.


What we are seeing more and more, is lots of airlines introducing all sorts of extra charges for every little thing they can think of - so they can keep advertising £1 or £2.99 flights - but it is a completely false figure. You have to pay extra for a seat, or for your hold luggage bags, extra to check-in. A booking fee, credit card fee, taxes & charges (what are these charges??), massive excess baggage charges etc etc.

1st off your statement that the obsession with cheap flights is getting dull, do you understand that this is a moneysaving website? i dont find it dull when I can travel to mainland europe for less than it costs me to get a train into london, which is 30miles away.

Sure there are charges but there also ways of avoiding or minimising these charges, again this is where sites like MSE come in, prior to finding this site I just use to pay the surcharges and be happy that the flights were still cheap as chips.

Of course flights rarely make a loss and this is where the confusion slips in for some, there is an assumption that all flights on flight "x" are £10 each however only 50 of the seats are £10 the rest are full price and some, which are sold last minute are silly money, add to that the revenue stream of airlines carrying freight/post for postal companies and the money made on board it all adds up.